Some of you have already inquired and the time to register is March. If you are employed in Germany you can officially attend the 12th re:publica as an educational event for your professional advanced training. That's right, #rp18 is an official training event! Employees and trainees can put in a request to their employers for educational leave. You will need the confirmation of the individual federal states to apply for educational leave with your employer. We will upload these at the bottom of this page.

We’ve applied to Berlin, Brandenburg, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate to officially be recognized as an educational event. And we’ve already received confirmations from Berlin, Brandenburg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland. Keep up with your applications – the latest deadlines are towards the end of March. Your applications need to be submitted 4 to 6 weeks prior to the re:publica, so get them handed in sooner rather than later.

Unfortunately, some federal states do not offer educational leave or we were not able to fulfill their prerequisites. These states include: Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Bremen, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein, North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. We are in contact with North Rhine-Westphalia, but unfortunately we weren’t able to find an agreement in the last years.

If you'd like to check out some general information on the ins-and-outs of educational leave, check out this information page: Bildungsurlaub.de

For more information on how to apply for educational leave, we've put together a small FAQ:

Who can apply for educational leave?
Prerequisite for official educational leave is you being an employee or in employment training in Germany.

What do I have to keep in mind?
It's important to remember that decisions on your application for educational leave are based on your place of work, not your place of residence!

What if I'm self-employed?
Self-employed, freelancers and employees should check out training: Bildungsprämie

What documents do I need?
Several federal states have already confirmed our application for official recognition of re:publica as an educational event. Copies of this confirmation need to be presented to your employer. You can download the following:

What happens now?
With the educational event confirmation your can contact your employer, as well as the relevant education authority in your state, and apply for educational leave. You'll need an application form and reference number from your employment or education authority. Check out the relevant link Link provided by the city of Berlin. More information on educational leave for the state of Brandenburg can be found here. Further information from responsible authority in Rhineland-Palatinate can be found on this page.

What are the next steps?
As a conference participant, your application for exemption (from work) needs to be submitted to your employer at least six to four weeks in advance, depending on your state. So by mid to end of March, seeing as re:publica is taking place 2th - 4th May 2018 (don’t forget, that’s earlier than last year)! See our mock application t the bottom of this page. As event organisers, re:publica will provide you with a confirmation of registration, which sums up the name, duration and confirmation of the event. Of course you will also need an attendance certificate to present to your employer, following the conference. No problem: our info-counter at STATION Berlin can provide you with a certificate, including official stamp and signature.

If you have any more questions feel free to contact us at: info (at) re-publica.de.

Still looking for convincing arguments to attend #rp18 for further education?

re:publica 2018 is a three-day conference, featuring over 500 hours of event programme provided by international experts, scientists and politicians from over 70 countries. With over 9000 attendees, re:publica is Europe's most important and leading conference on topics affecting the digital society. More on the conference over here. Check out our handy visual summary of all re:publica facts here.